Ver. 18.
Ver. 19.
For I will not dare to talk at all of things which Christ did not work out through me, (there is an emphasis on "me,") to effect obedience of (the) Nations to His Gospel, by word and deed, in power of signs and wonders, in power of God's Spirit; a reference, strangely impressive by its very passingness, to the exercise of miracle-working gifts by the writer. This man, so strong in thought, so practical in counsel, so extremely unlikely to have been under an illusion about a large factor in his adult and intensely conscious experience, speaks direct from himself of his wonder-works. And the allusion, thus dropped by the way and left behind, is itself an evidence to the perfect mental balance of the witness; this was no enthusiast, intoxicated with ambitious spiritual visions, but a man put in trust with a mysterious yet sober treasure. So that from Jerusalem, and round about it (Acts xxvi. 20), as far as the Illyrian region, the highland seabord which looks across the Adriatic to the long eastern side of Italy, I have fulfilled the Gospel of Christ, carried it practically everywhere, satisfied the idea of so distributing it that it shall be accessible everywhere to the native races.
Ver. 20.
to
Ver. 24.
But this I have done with this ambition, to preach the Gospel not where Christ was already named, that I might not build on another man's foundation; but to act on the divine word, as it stands written (Isai. lii. 15), "They to whom no news was carried about Him, shall see; and those who have not heard, shall understand." Here was an "ambition" as far-sighted as it was noble. Would that the principle of it could have been better remembered in the history of Christendom, and not least in our own age; a wasteful over-lapping of effort on effort, system on system, would not need now to be so much deplored. Thus as a fact (καὶ) I was hindered for the most part—hindrances were the rule, signals of opportunity the exception—in coming to you; you, whose City is no untrodden ground to messengers of Christ, and therefore not the ground which had a first claim on me. But now, as no longer having place in these regions, eastern Roman Europe yielding him no longer an unattempted and accessible district to enter, and having a home-sick feeling (ἐπιποθίαν: see above, i. 11) for coming to you, these many years whenever I may be journeying to Spain, [I will come to you[253]]. For I hope, on my journey through, to see the sight of you (θεάσασθαι, as if the view of so important a Church would be a spectacle indeed), and by you[254] to be escorted there, if first I may have my fill of you, however imperfectly (ἀπὸ μέρους).
As always, in the fine courtesy of pastoral love, he says more, and thinks more, of his own expected gain of refreshment and encouragement from them, than even of what he may have to impart to them. So he had thought, and so spoken, in his opening page (i. 11, 12); it is the same heart throughout.
How little did he realize the line and details of the destined fulfilment of that "home-sick feeling"! He was indeed to "see Rome," and for no passing "sight of the scene." For two long years of sorrows and joys, restraints and wonderful occasions, innumerable colloquies, and the writing of great Scriptures, he was to "dwell in his own hired lodgings" there. But he did not see what lay between.
For St Paul ordinarily, as always for us, it was true that "we know not what awaits us." For us, as for him, it is better "to walk with God in the dark, than to go alone in the light."
Did he ultimately visit Spain? We shall never know until perhaps we are permitted to ask him hereafter. It is not at all impossible that, released from his Roman prison, he first went westward and then—as at some time he certainly did—travelled to the Levant. But no tradition, however faint, connects St Paul with the great Peninsula which glories in her legend of St James. Is it irrelevant to remember that in his Gospel he has notably visited Spain in later ages? It was the Gospel of St Paul, the simple grandeur of his exposition of Justification by Faith, which in the sixteenth century laid hold on multitudes of the noblest of Spanish hearts, till it seemed as if not Germany, not England, bid fairer to become again a land of "truth in the light." The terrible Inquisition utterly crushed the springing harvest, at Valladolid, at Seville, and in that ghastly Quemadero at Madrid, which, five-and-twenty years ago, was excavated by accident, to reveal its deep strata of ashes, and charred bones, and all the débris of the Autos. But now again, in the mercy of God, and in happier hours, the New Testament is read in the towns of Spain, and in her highland villages, and churches are gathering around the holy light, spiritual descendants of the true, the primeval, Church of Rome. May "the God of hope fill them with all peace and joy in believing."
Ver. 25.
to
Ver. 27.
But now I am journeying to Jerusalem, the journey whose course we know so well from Acts xx., xxi., ministering to the saints, serving the poor converts of the holy City as the collector and conveyer of alms for their necessities. For Macedonia and Achaia, the northern and southern Provinces of Roman Greece, finely personified in this vivid passage, thought good to make something of a (τινὰ) communication, a certain gift to be "shared" among the recipients, for the poor of the saints who live at Jerusalem; the place where poverty seemed specially, for whatever reason, to beset the converts. "For they thought good!" yes; but there is a different side to the matter. Macedonia and Achaia are generous friends, but they have an obligation too: And debtors they are to them, to these poor people of the old City. For if in their spiritual things the Nations shared, they, these Nations, are in debt, as a fact, (καί,) in things carnal, things belonging to our "life in the flesh," to minister to them; λειτουργῆσαι, to do them public and religious service.